This past March, Pope Benedict xvi decided to drop “patriarch of the West” from his list of official titles. This seemingly benign move actually has massive consequences for Christian churches around the world.

The pope has effectively been “patriarch of the West” since the Great Schism of 1054, when the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches split, largely over the issue of the primacy of the pope in Rome.

The Eastern Orthodox synod expressed fears over the possible implications of the title change. They said that the problem was that the change implied that the Catholic Church still sought “universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome over the entire church” (totalcatholic.com, June 19). By retaining the titles “vicar of Christ” and “supreme pontiff of the universal church,” the pope discarding the term “patriarch of the West,” which effectively delimits his jurisdiction, makes it so the “term and concept of ‘sister churches’ between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox church becomes hard to use,” in the nervous eyes of the Orthodox synod.

Less than a week after the expression of anxiety from the Eastern Orthodoxy, Pope Benedict tried to placate those concerned by calling the two churches “truly sisters” just as Peter (the Roman Catholic patron saint) and Andrew (the Eastern Orthodox patron saint) were “true brothers.” That statement, of course, made no mention of the fact that Roman Catholics believe the Apostle Andrew was subordinate to their patron saint Peter, the chief apostle.

It has long been the Catholic Church’s goal to bring what it considers its wayward daughter churches back under its direct control. Benedict has said that healing the schism with the Eastern Orthodox and uniting all Christians was a “fundamental” priority (Associated Press, March 17). By dropping his title “patriarch of the West,” Benedict has highlighted his ambition to reabsorb the Eastern Orthodox and make Catholicism a universal church once again.